Chương 6
My stomach tightened.
"What is this?"
"Messages."
"Between them?"
"Yes."
I looked closer.
The dates were from two weeks earlier.
Violet:
I need space.
Evan:
You don't mean that.
Violet:
I do.
Evan:
You can't just disappear.
Violet:
I'm not disappearing.
I need you to stop deciding things for me.
I looked away.
Those were not the words of someone in a normal teenage argument.
They were the words of someone trying to regain control.
"What else?"
Ortiz hesitated.
"There's more."
She handed me another page.
Evan:
Your dad thinks he can scare everyone because he wears a uniform.
Violet:
Leave him out of this.
Evan:
You think he knows everything.
He doesn't know anything.
My fingers pressed against the paper.
"He knew about me."
"Yes."
"How?"
"We don't know."
I looked at the messages again.
A cold feeling moved through me.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The kind of recognition that came when a person realized the shape of something before they understood the details.
"This wasn't about money."
"No."
"It wasn't about a robbery."
"No."
Ortiz nodded.
"We agree on that."
The room became quiet.
Then she said, "There is one thing you need to hear before you make assumptions."
I looked up.
"What?"
"Evan may have done something terrible."
She folded her hands.
"But he may also be afraid of someone else."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because his parents received a message this morning."
My expression changed.
"What message?"
She slid another photograph across the table.
A screenshot.
Unknown number.
The same wording.
Stop asking questions.
The person who sent it to Evan's parents had used the same number that contacted me.
I stared at the screen.
Two families.
Two warnings.
One person controlling the conversation.
"Where is Evan now?"
Ortiz looked at me.
"That's what we're trying to find out."
"And if you find him?"
"We bring him in."
"Alive?"
Her eyes hardened slightly.
"Yes."
The answer should not have surprised me.
It did.
Because some part of me had already imagined a different ending.
A simple one.
A violent one.
An ending where the person responsible lost everything in the same way my daughter had.
Ortiz watched me carefully.
"Daniel."
I looked at her.
"Your daughter needs you to be her father."
The words landed harder than any command I had ever received.
Because she was right.
A soldier wanted a target.
A father needed the truth.
I stood up.
"Take me to the evidence room."
"Why?"
"Because I need to see something."
"What?"
"The envelope."
Her eyes narrowed.
"What envelope?"
"The one someone opened in my house."
For the first time since I met her, Detective Ortiz looked surprised.
"Show me."
"Show me."
Ortiz led me through a hallway where the walls were covered with framed photographs of officers receiving awards, shaking hands, standing beside cars after cases had ended.
I noticed none of them.
My attention stayed on the small paper envelope sitting in an evidence tray.
It looked exactly the same as it had on my kitchen counter.
Except now it was surrounded by plastic and labels.
A piece of my daughter's life had become an object in a case file.
I hated how quickly that happened.
How fast a person could become evidence.
"Crime scene tech found it near the kitchen drawer," Ortiz said.
"Was it processed?"
"Yes."
"Any prints?"
"Some."
I looked at her.
"Some?"
"Your daughter touched it."
"Anyone else?"
She didn't answer immediately.
That was an answer.
"Who?"
"We are waiting for confirmation."
I stared at the envelope.
"Open it."
Ortiz shook her head.
"Not without documentation."
"I am her father."
"I know."
"Then why are we standing here?"
"Because if someone tampered with this, I need the truth to survive outside this room."
That sentence forced me to slow down.
She was not protecting paper.
She was protecting what came after.
A trial.
A conviction.
A chance that whoever did this could not walk away because of one mistake made in a police room.
I stepped back.
"Open it properly."
She nodded.
The technician photographed every side before cutting the edge.
The process took less than a minute.
It felt longer.
Inside was a folded piece of notebook paper.
No decoration.
No date.
No explanation.
Just Violet's handwriting.
I recognized it instantly.
Her letters always leaned slightly to the right.
She said straight handwriting looked like it was trying too hard.
Ortiz read silently first.
Then she looked at me.
"Mr. Harper."
"What?"
"You need to read this."
She handed it over.
Dad,
I don't know if I will give this to you.
That was the first line.
I had to stop.
My vision blurred for a moment.
Not because I was crying.
Because my brain refused to accept that these words existed before yesterday.
Before the hospital.
Before the hallway.
I forced myself to continue.
I know you think I don't tell you things because I don't trust you.
That's not true.
I don't tell you things because I know what you do when people hurt me.
You go into that place.
The place where everything becomes a threat.
I looked away.
Ortiz stayed quiet.
I continued.
Evan is not the person you think he is.
But I don't know if he's the person everyone thinks he is either.
That sentence made me stop.
My daughter had understood something I had not.
People were rarely simple.
Even when they caused pain.
Even when they were wrong.
There was more.
I found out he was talking to someone.
I don't know who.
He gets scared when his phone rings.
He says things like he is being watched.
I asked him about it and he got angry.
Then he apologized.
Then he acted like nothing happened.
I thought I could fix it.
I thought if I was patient enough, he would tell me the truth.
I should have told you.
I know that.
I'm sorry.
May you like
But I was afraid you would do exactly what you are probably doing right now.
You would go after him before knowing everything.
